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Cal State will no longer require math and English placement exams

latimes.com

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Re: Cal State will no longer require math and English placement exams

#211

Post by mathattack »

strictnein wrote: post #173
mathattack wrote: post #160

This seems like they're focusing on the wrong metric. They look and say, "Graduates earn more money" and say "ok, for the best NPV, let's reduce the cost and increase the graduates". The problem is they mistake causality with correlation. If you focus strictly on graduation, without improving the students, then you will find that graduates will earn less. This same problem happens in high school - lowering the standa…

College graduation and home ownership were markers of success that were misinterpreted as the source of success.

Very good point. I saw some research that suggested that once you control for income and SAT scores, where you applied to school (Signaling ambition) was as much a predictor of success as where you actually attended.

Re: Cal State will no longer require math and English placement exams

#212

Post by mathattack »

ThinkingGuy wrote: post #187
mathattack wrote: post #160

This seems like they're focusing on the wrong metric. They look and say, "Graduates earn more money" and say "ok, for the best NPV, let's reduce the cost and increase the graduates". The problem is they mistake causality with correlation. If you focus strictly on graduation, without improving the students, then you will find that graduates will earn less. This same problem happens in high school - lowering the standa…

In my opinion it is part of a wider trend, of both public- and private-sector schools, moving away from the "education business" and more toward the "diploma business."

Yes. So the question is, "Are schools giving up their academic rigor, or just facing up to the reality that students aren't learning anything anyway?"

My soft anecdotal observation is...

- At my large public undergrad, very little classroom learning happened for 80+% of the students outside the hard subjects. (Physics, Computer Science, etc) 80+% of the students in the hard subjects learned a lot in the class. Many students learned a lot outside of the classroom.

- At my private research focused professional grad school, there was a lot more learning, but even then more of the learning was outside the classroom. It was also possible to treat the experience as a multi-year job interview, and do fine skating by with low grades.

Re: Cal State will no longer require math and English placement exams

#214

Post by stevenwoo »

dragandj wrote: post #98
StanislavPetrov wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you are missing the point. For many years now, admissions standards have been so low that rather than teaching the courses they are scheduled to teach, college professors are forced to offer a remedial review of information that should have been mastered in high school. Many, if not most, high school graduates are functionally illiterate, lacking the basic reading and writing skills we took for granted in the rec…

Why would that be surprising? Hungary and Slovak Republic are countries with long traditions of strong education.

Finland was able to turn itself around in a generation from one of the worst pre college education systems in the West to one of the best, ironically using research from the USA. http://news.stanford.edu/news/2012/january/finnish-schools-r... Of course, a smaller, more homogeneous society would be easier to change than the USA.

Re: Cal State will no longer require math and English placement exams

#215

Post by talmand »

nradov wrote: post #194
talmand wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny, my kids' math teachers have all stated to me, in public not whispers, they hate the "new math" and it is inhibiting them from teaching math correctly. Since I wasn't educated in the "new math" as a kid I have difficulties helping my children with their homework, which the teachers also admitted to being a problem. Typically I just show them how to solve the problem the way I learned and they pick it up much qu…

The Common Core math curriculum is actually quite good and based on solid academic research on how to best teach those concepts to the majority of kids. Most of the parents complaining about it just haven't taken the time to read through their children's textbooks and understand the alternative techniques.

We don't have textbooks, we have worksheets. Worksheets with little or no explanation as to the expectations of how to complete the work. That part was covered in class. I was not in class, I was at work. My children don't always understand the alternative techniques and cannot explain them to me. I cannot assist my children in learning alternative techniques I did not learn.

Since we're generalizing, I think that most people that complain about complaining parents haven't taken the time to listen to what the parents are actually complaining about.

Re: Cal State will no longer require math and English placement exams

#216

Post by mnarayan01 »

purple-again wrote: post #189
agentgt wrote: post #186

You might be asking how one fails the state testing (then gets put in remedial class) but gets accepted to college (particularly a CA state one). Let me tell you a funny yet embarrassing story. I went to GaTech and I failed the English Regents test not once but twice! Now at first I thought it was my fault. I didn't really take the test seriously. However I was seriously embarrassed. After all this was Georgia not Ca…

I feel that this story needs a date to make any sense. 2015? Wow that's completely ridiculous and infuriating. 1984? Yeah that makes sense, handwriting was a critical skill for effective communication in the college setting.

He should have been told regardless. I can totally understand, sympathize, and even potentially agree with an evaluator not wanting to deal with sloppy handwriting, but a context-free failing grade is just totally unacceptable.

Re: Cal State will no longer require math and English placement exams

#217

Post by rtpg »

talmand wrote: post #215
nradov wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Common Core math curriculum is actually quite good and based on solid academic research on how to best teach those concepts to the majority of kids. Most of the parents complaining about it just haven't taken the time to read through their children's textbooks and understand the alternative techniques.

We don't have textbooks, we have worksheets. Worksheets with little or no explanation as to the expectations of how to complete the work. That part was covered in class. I was not in class, I was at work. My children don't always understand the alternative techniques and cannot explain them to me. I cannot assist my children in learning alternative techniques I did not learn. Since we're generalizing, I think that mo…

I can totally understand the frustration at not being able to help their kid at multiplication, of all things.

It would be interesting if teachers could provide cliff's notes of the lessons so parents can help out. Would help the kids too!

Or even better, teachers could have kids prepare explanations for the techniques. Might take a while but I bet the children will remember the techniques way better afterwards.

Re: Cal State will no longer require math and English placement exams

#218

Post by thaumasiotes »

reducesuffering wrote: post #74
thaumasiotes wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not familiar with Cal State but do they just let anyone in who applies? No, Cal State is the 2nd of three public college tiers defined by California law. (Top is the UC system, bottom is the community college system, which will indeed let in anyone who applies.) CSUs, except for Cal Poly SLO, admit on a quota-by-major system, scoring all applicants objectively and taking the top $quota who applied in each major…

While interesting, being of college age and living in the area, SFSU impaction makes sense. CS majors are generally more serious about their education and major choice and also know that SFSU is a poor choice for a CS degree. Meanwhile, I know many people that, getting into their 20s, go "I wanna live the city life!", and quickly pick a major with SFSU being an easy admission.

Compare SJSU being impacted in all majors, including CS.

Re: Cal State will no longer require math and English placement exams

#219

Post by msla »

nradov wrote: post #194
talmand wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny, my kids' math teachers have all stated to me, in public not whispers, they hate the "new math" and it is inhibiting them from teaching math correctly. Since I wasn't educated in the "new math" as a kid I have difficulties helping my children with their homework, which the teachers also admitted to being a problem. Typically I just show them how to solve the problem the way I learned and they pick it up much qu…

The Common Core math curriculum is actually quite good and based on solid academic research on how to best teach those concepts to the majority of kids. Most of the parents complaining about it just haven't taken the time to read through their children's textbooks and understand the alternative techniques.

Most of the people who hate Common Core have no idea what it is and hate it because That Muslim is associated with it.

It's pure politics.

Re: Cal State will no longer require math and English placement exams

#220

Post by msla »

cafard wrote: post #188
talmand wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny, my kids' math teachers have all stated to me, in public not whispers, they hate the "new math" and it is inhibiting them from teaching math correctly. Since I wasn't educated in the "new math" as a kid I have difficulties helping my children with their homework, which the teachers also admitted to being a problem. Typically I just show them how to solve the problem the way I learned and they pick it up much qu…

Does Common Core use what we called "the new math" back in the 1960s? (Tom Lehrer's song is probably as good an intro as any.) Good math teachers seem to be hard to find. That was true in my school days also.

No, Common Core mandates what kids need to learn when, not how they're taught.
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